Guard and Scythe
by Tamah
Summary: What do you do when you know it's too late? Drag someone else into it, of course. Two pokémon make a last-ditch effort to save the world from their former trainer.
1. Chapter 1

**Tamah: Hi there. This is a sequel to a one-shot called Cuckoo Canticle. You don't have to read that one though, I guess. It would explain some things, though.**

**I know that the title is also a vocaloid song. **

**No, this has nothing to do with vocaloid.**

**Well, now that I scared everyone off, here I go.**

* * *

"Where is that damn thing?" Rebekah muttered to herself as she flung clothes everywhere. She was in her closet, attempting to find something the size of a postage stamp. She wanted to find her Platinum version so she could trade some of her pokémon over to her Soul Silver.

On the floor, she finally found it. "Now, where did I put my DS?" she asked herself sheepishly. She surveyed her room, realizing she made a terrible mess. She would clean it later. And by later, she meant next week.

Lucky for her, it wasn't anywhere strange, it was sitting on her pillow. She put the game in and turned it on. She tried to think about the last time she had actually played her Platinum. It had been a long time ago, she thought guiltily.

She promised to play it more often from then on.

Rebekah clicked continue and waited a few seconds. It loaded in Pastoria City. That was kind of strange, but what was just a tad stranger was the lack of Dawn in the middle of the screen. "The hell?" Rebekah muttered, "What kind of creepypasta bullshit is this?"

She tried to push the directional keys, but the screen didn't move. She was about to kill the cartridge with fire when a group of people walked across the screen.

Their sprites told her they were policemen. She didn't remember any part of the game going quite like this, so she watched, transfixed.

A textbox appeared. "Is there any sign of anyone?"

Another sprite walked up to the pack. "No, and we can't find any bodies either."

Wait, bodies? The fuck?

This whole thing has to be some kind of joke, she thought. Maybe her brother had hacked it or something, just to fuck with her.

The police scurried off screen, and nothing happened for a few minutes. Rebekah was about to switch it off when two pokémon waltzed in. A lucario and a togekiss, two of her pokémon from the game.

She had a feeling she wasn't going to like where this was going. Her suspicions came true when she felt herself grow lightheaded and black out.

Rebekah opened her eyes slowly. She was outside, somewhere. Above her was a sky filled with dark, foreboding rain clouds. She groaned. "What kind of bullshit is this?" she grumbled, pulling herself up out of the mud.

She wiped a smear of sticky mud off of her face. "Ech."

_She's awake~! She's awake~!_

Rebekah nearly jumped out of her skin. What on earth. . . ? She looked around frantically for the speaker. A huge, fat, white bird-thing sat in the mud next to her, peering at her with friendly-looking eyes. It had red and blue mark-

Red and blue on a fat white bird?

No way.

No, no way in hell.

She brought her hand up to her forehead, trying to feel if she had a fever. All she managed to do was get more mud all over her face.

"Jubilee?" she asked, giving in and just going along.

The bird- no, a togekiss- fluffed up and trilled happily.

_You _are_ her~! You _are_ her! Swift, Swiiiift!_ She squealed and pulled Rebekah into a feathery embrace. Somehow.

In a flash, a lucario stood next to Jubilee. If her delusions stuck to continuity, this was Swift, her lucario.

There was a few moments of silence. She felt like she should break it. "Swift, is that you?"

The lucario turned towards her, shock and happiness came over his canine features. He pulled her and Jubilee into a hug, taking care to not stab anyone with his chest spike.

_See~, see~, see~? Now we can go! We need to go, _the mind voice she had labeled as Jubilee's chirped.

"Go where?" Rebekah asked. After all, didn't these kinds of things end after some kind of epic quest or something?

A different voice spoke up, probably Swift's. _If I tell you, you won't want to go. So you are coming anyway. _

She made a face. This didn't sound all that good. . . .

* * *

Far away from there, in a place beyond belief, a girl was sitting on a floating rock. She was swinging her legs back and forth over the edge, and she was giggling to herself. In her hand was a dull-colored flower. The surroundings were just as bleak and dead-looking.

"He loves me," she said, plucking a petal, "he loves me not." She pulled another petal. She went on until there was only one petal left.

"He loves me!" she said with a squeal, "Did ya hear that, Tsunami! He loves me!"

The empoleon sat next to her, silent and stoic.

She cast a sunny glance to the man sitting far away, on another floating island. He, like the empoleon, was about as expressive as a rock.

Cyrus was deep in thought. It was difficult to believe that his ideal world was so close to fruition. Even more difficult to believe was that Dawn was the crucial element to his plan. She had stopped him once before, after all, so it was extremely odd that she would come back to him, promising him her help.

Why would such an emotional child want to help him succeed? Did she realize that his ideal meant that she would be destroyed in the end? Obviously not, he mused.

At first, he was convinced that it was some kind of trap. She was acting very different than when they first crossed paths; before she seemed determined, serious. But now, she was the exact opposite. When she found him in the Distortion Realm, he was convinced that he would not be able to put up with her constant chatter and general annoying persona.

Over time, he grew to accept her strange attitude. It was obvious she adored him, perhaps as some type of father figure.

What puzzled him the most, though. . . . It would have to be the callous way she could slaughter others. Not just other human beings, but pokémon as well. Her violent actions led him to the conclusion that she was very similar to him, in the emotional sense. He theorized that she was hiding her lack of feelings by overcompensating.

"Cyrus! Whatcha doing?" she asked with a cheerful smile and her head tilted slightly. He had been so lost in thought that he hadn't noticed her presence.

"I am thinking." he told her.

"Oh," she said, "What're you thinking about?"

"Important things," he said. "Very important things."


	2. Chapter 2

**Tamah: Well, here's the next chapter~  
**

* * *

_It was official, _Rebekah thought, _mud sucked._

Rebekah had been wading through the thick, sticky crud for who knew how long, and she wasn't even close to being out of the marsh yet. "Can't I just fly on you, Jubilee?" she groaned. Her legs felt like they were about to fall off.

_But you're so dirty!_ the togekiss protested, _Besides, you'll never get strong by being so lazy~! _

_Strength is a powerful asset, _Swift added.

"Shut up, both of you. I feel like I'm about to keel over," she complained.

_You're building muscle. Take it like a champ. _That damn lucario was messing with her! She cast an irritated glare at the aura pokémon.

_Wait a minute, both pokémon can use Aura. Is that how they can do their mind-speak thing?_ she wondered.

"Where are my other pokémon? I bet Joy would fly me anywhere," she grumbled under her breath.

The pair of pokémon were silent for a moment.

_They're somewhere else,_ Jubilee reluctantly said.

Rebekah could almost feel the sadness lacing their thoughts, so she didn't ask anything else, she just 'took it like a champ.'

A few hours later, she was finally able to pull herself out of the mire and onto dry land. She collapsed on the wonderfully solid earth and passed out, right there. The two pokémon exchanged worried glances before the lucario picked up the woman and began to carry her.

Rain began to pour. If Rebekah wasn't too busy sleeping, she probably would have complained at the lack of visibility, but since both Swift and Jubilee had the wonderful gift of Aura, they could navigate through the rain just fine.

_It's probably better this way,_ Swift remarked.

The togekiss let out a sad note. _Perhaps._

The silence stretched out uncomfortably between the pair, both feeling guilty.

_It's what has to be done,_ Jubilee said, trying to assure herself. _We both know that._

The lucario nodded, but remained silent. They reached a small house, with the door torn wide open. They decided to ignore the implications of that and went inside anyway. Swift carefully set Rebekah on the bed in the back room, and went to the table in the living room.

Jubilee was whiling the time away by preening herself, to get at least some of the mud off of her feathers. _You know, they say mud is good for the human skin, _Jubilee said, _It's supposed to moisturize it or something._

The lucario chuckled. _Well, I'm willing to bet that she has enough moisture to last a long while._ He noticed a television in the corner and tried to find the device to turn it on with.

He eventually found it, thrown into some corner because of a struggle, no doubt. He awkwardly mashed a few buttons, trying to get the television to activate. One day, one day, he would learn to read the moonspeak that was the human alphabet.

The lucario finally managed to find the right button. Now, to only hope it was on a useful channel. Luckily, it did seem to be the news channel.

He watched it absentmindedly, letting his ears listen for any important information. All the humans could talk about was whatever was happening at the Mountain. Being a steel-type, like every steel-type, he could normally feel the calming magnetism of Mt. Coronet.

Lately, though, the magnetism took on a strange, alien feeling, one he did not like at all. His fears were confirmed when the humans began to panic about some type of disturbance at the top. He did not need to see it to know it to be there.

Jubilee, not being a steel-type, but having the extra aura abilities, could feel it in a different way. When she was flying in the sky, she told him that she could see it as well, before the humans did.

It was troubling, to say the least. Swift sighed in frustration. It wasn't like a pokémon to have to think this way. It was normally a job for humans to constantly worry about things. Other pokémon didn't seem to care about the implications of the mountain, well, other than Jubilee. Even other lucario seemed blissfully uncaring.

He was sure that it wasn't a coincidence. Nothing was ever a coincidence. Swift's gaze rested on the mud-caked woman who was currently snoring loudly in the other room. Like most humans she appeared powerless and fragile in his eyes, but at the same time a valued ally.

_You can go to sleep, Swift._ Jubilee told him, _I don't think I can sleep tonight._

_I doubt anyone will find us here,_ he said. _You shouldn't worry. _

She let out a sound of discontent. _I know._

He felt a pang of pity for his companion. By nature, she should be forever cheerful and kind-hearted. Every movement she made exuded hopelessness and depression. Well, that wasn't entirely true, he thought. When the girl is around, the togekiss radiated with glee that he knows is more than a shell.

If only he could feel the same way.

Rebekah woke with a start. She glanced around the room in a panic, frantically wondering where she was. In the dim light, she saw the sleeping form of Jubilee and calmed down slightly.

So it wasn't a dream, or some crazy delusion. Rebekah was actually inside of a video game. She chuckled quietly, careful not to wake the two. Of all the strange things that could happen to someone, this ranked up in the impossible. Obviously.

She pulled herself up out of bed and immediately wished she didn't. Her entire body was aching and sore. She allowed herself to fall back onto the bed with a groan. Stupid exercise.

Stupid muscles.

Stupid everything.

Reaching out to turn on a small lamp, she almost knocked it over. But she did manage to turn it on.

The sudden light caught the lucario's attention, and Swift sat up quickly. _It took you long enough to wake up,_ he reprimanded.

Rebekah made a face. "I'm not used to tromping all over creation, okay?" And in mud, no less. Speaking of mud, she felt gritty and disgusting all over. "Does this place have a shower or something?"

_I didn't check,_ he told her dryly, _I'm sure it does, though. _

"How do you do that?" she asked, "I mean, how do you even have a tone of voice?"

Swift found himself chucking. _Magic._

The woman lifted up her head and stuck her tongue out at him. She then dragged herself out of the filthy bed and shuffled to the hallway. Rebekah saw two doors. One, she discovered, was a closet, the other, to her supreme delight, was a bathroom. The hallway itself led to a living room, where a television was on.

Her aches suddenly forgotten, she scrambled into the bathroom and began to shower. _Whoever owned the house has some fancy soaps,_ she thought to herself.

_Speaking of, where are the owners?_ she wondered, _I'll have to ask Jubilee and Swift later. _

Rebekah hoped that whoever owned the house didn't mind her borrowing some of their clothes (if they even fit, of course) because there was no way she was going to change back into her icky, filthy clothes.

Grabbing a towel, she went back into the bedroom to rummage through the lonely-looking dresser. She glanced around after a second, looking for the two pokémon, but they weren't in the small room. Rebekah closed the door and changed, noting that the clothes were a little big. It's better than them being too small, she mused.

Are you done in there? The lucario asked, We need to leave.

"Yeah. Let me grab a bag to hold my old clothes." _And some food wouldn't hurt, _she thought. She was really hungry.


End file.
